From the Principal

Thank you for your interest in Essendon North Primary School.

Essendon North Primary School pursues excellence in developing global learners and leaders, who strive to exceed expectations. We maximize the potential of all: empowering independence, excellence, innovation and engagement with the world.

Our school has an International Accreditation with the Council of International Schools (CIS) and is authorised as an International Baccalaureate (IB) World School, offering the Primary Years Programme (IB PYP). These are schools that share a common philosophy – a commitment to high quality, challenging, international education that Essendon North Primary School believes is important for our students.

Our school was officially opened on September 9th 1920 and is located on Keilor Road in the suburb of North Essendon, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The school is approximately 12 km north-west from Melbournes Central Business District and our Local Government area is the City of Moonee Valley. The school has a Student Occupation Index of 0.37 and a LBOTE proportion of 0.13. The school has a current enrolment number of 670 students and it is anticipated that enrolments will continually increase over the next several years.

Our school offers a broad curriculum and an extensive co-curricular program that enables our students to experience new challenges and opportunities beyond the classroom. From Foundation to Year Two, our focus is on establishing solid foundations in Literacy and Numeracy, and from Years Three and Six our focus moves to building breadth and depth using a One to One iPad Strategy. This approach, complemented by a clear focus on student achievement, provides solid foundations for students to access a rich and diverse learning experience. The focus on an inquiry based curriculum that utilises and extends the application of contemporary learning technologies in collaborative learning environments provides engaging and stimulating opportunities for students to extend themselves beyond their years. These learning opportunities and improvements are maintained through a lens of wellbeing. Our values based approach ensures that students from diverse backgrounds are united under a consistent and equitable umbrella that values all stakeholders yet provides a common connection of learning and diversity.

Our school offers a range of specialist and extra-curricular programs including LOTE (Mandarin), Visual and Performing Arts, Health and Physical Education, Literacy and Numeracy Intervention and Enrichment, Life Education, Family Life, Interschool Sport, Perceptual Motor Program (PMP), School Productions and Choir, Victorian State Schools Spectacular (VSSS), Instrumental Music Tuition, Student Leadership and Voice, Buddy Program, Prep to Year 6 Camping Program, Incursions and Excursions, and a Before and After School Program. We have developed a comprehensive program and service structure for students with special needs, and disabilities and impairments.

Our school has three principal class members, one leading teacher and eight professional learning teams for all teaching and non-teaching staff. The Executive Team, School Improvement Team (SIT) and all eight Professional Learning Teams (PLT) regularly plan and evaluate teaching effectiveness and student learning outcomes, and participate in team based professional learning. The organisation of the school remains fluid and flexible so that our schools resources (human, physical and financial) can be strategically aligned to cater for the emerging learning needs of all our students.

At the very heart of our purpose is to provide every child with an international standard of education. We recognise that this will be achieved by our staff, and are committed to delivering high quality teaching practice so that every child learns and achieves high standards. High quality professional learning is one of the cornerstones of our school. We view teaching as a dynamic profession and, as new knowledge about learning, teaching and school leadership emerges, new types of expertise and skills are required by us. Our teachers engage in ongoing professional learning in order to continuously learn and improve what is taught, how it is taught and how learning is assessed (Bransford et al. 2000). The Seven Principles of Highly Effective Professional Learning is used to build our whole school professional development strategy so that staff keep abreast of new knowledge and use it continually refine conceptual and pedagogical skills for improving student learning. Our Performance and Development Framework is linked to the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) standards providing regular review of individual goals and active support in their achievement.

Thank you for considering Essendon North Primary School for your child, and you are warmly invited to tour our school facilities and visit our school on Open Days. Please contact the school’s reception to arrange a tour with me.

I look forward to our partnership, and am truly excited with the directions, possibilities and opportunities for education at Essendon North Primary School.